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The Development and Testing of a Temporary Small Cold Storage System: Gas-Inflated Membrane Cold Storage
Lihua Duan1, Xiaoyan Zhuo2, Jiajia Su2
1Tianjin Key Laboratory of Integrated Design and On-Line Monitoring for Light Industry & Food Machinery and Equipment, College of Mechanical Engineering, Tianjin University of Science and Technology, Tianjin 300222, China.
Foods (Basel, Switzerland)
|January 28, 2026
Summary
A new gas-inflated membrane cold storage (GIMCS) offers an affordable, portable solution for on-farm produce storage. This innovative system provides comparable preservation quality to conventional cold storage at a significantly lower cost.
Area of Science:
- Agricultural Engineering
- Materials Science
- Food Science
Background:
- Conventional cold storage facilities in China are ill-suited for on-farm demands due to spatial, installation, and portability limitations.
- These limitations contribute to significant post-harvest losses for perishable crops like cherry tomatoes.
- There is a need for cost-effective, portable, and easily deployable cold storage solutions for rural agricultural settings.
Purpose of the Study:
- To propose and evaluate a compact, temporary cold storage system using gas-inflated membrane structures (GIMCS).
- To optimize the GIMCS design for mechanical and thermal performance.
- To compare the GIMCS with conventional cold storage in terms of cost, thermal stability, and produce preservation.
Main Methods:
- Mechanical performance tests (tensile strength, pressure resistance, burst tests) on Polyamide/Polyethylene (PA/PE) composite membranes.
- Thermal performance evaluations using different gas fillings (CO2) and insulation strategies (cotton-filled dual insulation).
- Comparative 15-day storage trial of GIMCS versus conventional cold storage for cherry tomatoes, assessing cost, temperature uniformity, weight loss, respiration, and firmness.
Main Results:
- Optimal PA/PE membrane configuration identified (70 μm thickness, 2 cm gas column, 35%/65% PA/PE ratio).
- 100% CO2 filling provided the most effective thermal insulation.
- GIMCS construction cost was 38% of conventional storage, with comparable temperature uniformity (max 1.4 °C difference) and no significant differences in weight loss or respiration.
- GIMCS showed superior fruit firmness retention (1.30 kg·cm-2 vs. 1.26 kg·cm-2), suggesting extended shelf life.
Conclusions:
- GIMCS is an affordable, technically robust, and portable cold storage solution.
- It offers preservation performance comparable to or exceeding conventional systems.
- Its modularity and mobility make it ideal for smallholder farming systems, enhancing on-farm cold chain infrastructure.
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